<othx>
InPhase linked to "Modular Train Track Set, Standard Compatible, and Customizable by rcolyer" on thingiverse => 7 IRC mentions
<Guest6>
thanks alot, i´ll take a look at that
<InPhase>
Guest6: I made that for my kid one Christmas, and it worked exceptionally well. My kids have owned a lot of commercial sets, and those printed ones were better than all of them I think.
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<InPhase>
Welcome back. :)
<Guest6>
my pc locked up
<Guest6>
haha
<InPhase>
Did you get the link saved, or do you need it again?
<InPhase>
(Also channel logs are in the link at the topic.)
<Guest6>
i´ve got the thingiverse link, thank you.
<InPhase>
Excellent.
<Guest6>
Im trying to build my own train set with really small 3d printed trains
<Guest6>
if all goes well im gonna try to motorize one
<InPhase>
Sounds like fun. :)
<InPhase>
You'll see from the example that most curved train track designs could be made by some combination of that demonstrated rotate_extrude and for loops with rotate translate.
<Guest6>
yes, im looking at the code right now.
<Guest6>
looks really complicated
<Guest6>
but with openscad atleast its scaleable and i wont have to redisgn my all tracks if i need to change something later
<InPhase>
If you break it apart into pieces it'll start to make sense.
<Guest6>
yep
<InPhase>
The key is to design the curved part for the wheels to ride in as a 2D cross-section of what is rotate_extruded.
<InPhase>
So because I knew I would need that for the curved tracks for rotate_extrude, I reused the same approach for the straight tracks with linear_extrude so that they were matching parts.
<Guest6>
im honestly quite stumped as to why one could not just take a cross section of the entire rail and transform and rotate it often times in small slices so to say
<Guest6>
that was my approach
<Guest6>
your tracks have the wheels going inside of them, mine are going to sit ontop the rails.
<Guest6>
that should make it easier for me
<InPhase>
It tends to be a mess to try to piece together large numbers of 3D pieces. There needs to be slight overlap, so you end up with a large number of edge effects.
<Guest6>
true
<InPhase>
One can do it, but it makes for a design that renders slowly from all those edge effects, and it can end up printing not too smoothly.
<InPhase>
So the preferred approach is to look for a solution path that uses one of the other features.
<InPhase>
I had a few years of OpenSCAD experience before I made this track, so knowing these things, I actually made my curved track piece first, as I knew it would constrain my approach more, and then made the straight track from that.
<Guest6>
i think im gonna try and take you code as inspiration and then make my own approach instead of trying to adapt something i dont fully understand
<InPhase>
That's very reasonable.
<InPhase>
I built up my design in this order: First I worked only in 2D and made a cross section. Then I translated and rotate_extruded. Then I for-looped the cross bars.
<InPhase>
Then I put that in a module and copied it to make a straight track module.
<InPhase>
Probably the biggest chunk of time then was thinking about my latch design, as that actually required some clever thinking to get a design for connecting pieces that would work well for kids and also be printable. :)
<Guest6>
ok, that makes sense
<Guest6>
my connector is quite similar to how carrera cars work
<Guest6>
an at that small of a scale its enough to hold
<Guest6>
i think i understand your code now, everything after the rotate Extruded is for the bars
<InPhase>
Yeah. Well the latches at the end to connect, and then the bars.
<Guest6>
i think i know how to do my latches
<InPhase>
If you're new to printing in general, what you'll want to do is print some small track segments and test out your latches so you can make tweaks to the spacing and such on those.
<InPhase>
It's precisely the sort of thing that's hard to get perfect on the first draft.
<Guest6>
calculate the fist angle, cut out the connector hole, calculate last angle, make a cube to fit in that hole
<Guest6>
i already have like 7 different tracks before me
<InPhase>
Ok. :)
<Guest6>
the latches work perfectly
<InPhase>
Great.
<Guest6>
i just hope ill be able to have the curved track have the same properties as the straight ones ive already printed
<Guest6>
but they so small the filament cost is negliable, so i can also just start again
<Guest6>
they´re*
<Guest6>
thank you for all the suggestions and your code, i have to leave now
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<InPhase>
J24k88: A springy cable wrap?
<J24k88>
InPhase who am i to tell you what to do with it - Ü .. but i use it as bag clip
<J24k88>
to use it the inner part is levered over the outer and so keeps bags tight
<J24k88>
when pulled over the folded bag
<J24k88>
slide
<InPhase>
Hmm, interesting. I guess that would work.
<InPhase>
I saw a few printable bag clip designs, but they all seemed prone to snapping.
<InPhase>
That looks resistant to snapping from the intrinsically distributed nature. But does it manage to not slide off the top?
<J24k88>
i am using it for years - but that version used several hundred stacked extrusions - so i had to make a cleaner version
<J24k88>
InPhase it is holding nicely but can be pulled off easy - if you want extra secure just put a bamboo skewer into the fold and pull after the clip was slid on
<InPhase>
J24k88: I usually use rubber bands. But it's a constant race between how often I buy celery at the grocery store, which is my primary source of rubber bands, and how often the kids lose the rubber bands.
<InPhase>
Now in theory one can buy rubber bands. But traditionally I have just acquired rubber bands by them arriving magically from other sources.
<InPhase>
The postal service used to be my primary source of rubber bands, but they have cut back on their rubber band usage to wrap the mail.
<gbruno>
[github] kintel closed pull request #5185 (Color support in 3D rendering (includes OFF color import / export, green subtracted faces)) https://github.com/openscad/openscad/pull/5185
<gbruno>
[github] kintel pushed 16 additions 45 modifications (Color support in 3D rendering (includes OFF color import / export, green subtracted faces) (#5185) * add PolySetBuilder::reserve / numPolygons
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<kintel>
InPhase Broccoli and Leek also come with rubber bands here, the good, thick ones.
<InPhase>
Leeks are alright, but not a normal part of my staple diet. However I have a genetic contempt for the flavor of broccoli.
<kintel>
One has to suffer for free rubber bands ;)
<InPhase>
I already passed on the "you'll live longer!" bit about broccoli. ;)
<kintel>
FYI: I've merged ochafik's PR which add color support for render (and export to OFF). There are a few pending issues, but will be resolved in follow-up PRs. If anyone finds anything suspicious, please ping me or open an issue
<InPhase>
For some reason all the best reputed green vegetables taste super bitter to me. I eat the other ones instead. :)
<InPhase>
kintel: What was the goal of exporting to off? Does it debug-print the colors?
<kintel>
It supports export to OFF with surface colors
<InPhase>
Is off like an actual real format?
<kintel>
yup
<InPhase>
I thought off meant "turn off output"...
<kintel>
haha
<InPhase>
And I looked in the source and just saw some ostream printouts, that I assumed were for debugging purposes or something, as they look pretty structureless.
<InPhase>
I didn't actually try it though.
<kintel>
Not sure who supports off import downstream from us though, but it's a good export-import test
<InPhase>
"- First line (optional): the letters OFF to mark the file type. - Second line: the number of vertices, number of faces, and number of edges, in order"